Rathman Interviews

When Mike Singletary was asked when he’d like to have a new offensive coordinator, he said, “Yesterday.” That was a week ago, at Singletary’s season-ending news conference. So far, no one has interviewed, and no one will be interviewed today for the coordinator position, however one coach did come in.

Former 49ers fullback and current Raiders running backs coach Tom Rathman interviewed this morning with Singletary and general manager Scot McCloughan for the running backs position, but the 49ers might want to consider him for a larger role. They could make him responsible for the running game, its coaching and its creation.

Tom Rathman breaks up a fight between Derrick Deese (63) and Ken Norton during his prior 49ers coaching days.

Who knows more about the 49ers and the running game than Rathman? He was reared in Bobb McKittrick’s system of traps, counters and sweeps. As a running backs coach for the 49ers from 1997 through 2002, he coaxed 1,000-yard seasons out of three different running backs every season including a 1,570 yard outburst out of Garrison Hearst in 1998, the last year the 49ers appeared in a NFC Championship game (remember when that happened regularly?) He adjusted to the injury addled Hearst and still got 1,206 yards out of him after Hearst’s two-season hiatus while he recovered from the extraction of dead bone in his ankle. Rathman handled difficult personalities in Charlie Garner and Kevan Barlow, and he developed Fred Beasley into a Pro Bowl fullback.

More telling is to examine what happened after Rathman left – Beasley seemingly lost interest and eventually left as a malcontent. Beasley and Barlow continued their long bubbling feud, Barlow clashed with Dennis Erickson’s running backs coach Tim Lappano, and the team struggled through two seasons without a 1,000-yard rusher.

In tours with the 49ers, Lions and Raiders, Rathman has coached it all, power game, mobile linemen, gap runs, and most intriguingly, he has learned and then taught the zone blocking scheme that’s been the only positive development in an otherwise dark Raiders era.

That’s the kind of running game the 49ers need. The 49ers’ stupendous run of sustained success 1980’s and 90’s was partially built upon players nobody else wanted – small linemen, big receivers, run plugging, two-gap tackles who lacked pass-rush acumen. A zone blocking scheme would put the 49ers back on that path, because it also uses smaller linemen. It’s also been so successful it’s baffling more teams don’t use it.

When the Raiders went to zone blocking, they immediately jumped into the top ten in rushing and that was with Justin Fargas as their main runner, a tough player of relatively mediocre talent. Atlanta went to zone blocking a few seasons ago, and even though they’ve been horrible until this season, they’ve always been able to run. Denver’s running success with zone blocking is legendary and when they modified it and went with bigger linemen over the past few years, they experienced serious offensive hiccups. It partially led to Mike Shanahan’s undoing. The Colts have also run the scheme consistently and they’ve been a running power for years.

But what of the passing game? Rathman has only dealt with running backs, he’s never coached receivers, quarterbacks or even tight ends and that might be the reason he’s only being looked at as the running backs coach. That’s where receivers coach Jerry Sullivan comes in. If Rathman were hired, the 49ers could promote Sullivan to co-offensive coordinator. This is basically how the 49ers did it under Bill Walsh, George Seifert and even Steve Mariucci. The offensive coordinator, whether it was Walsh, Mike Holmgren, or Shanahan would develop the passing game plan every week, while McKittrick created the running plays. The coordinator would then “coordinate” the plays and make the calls on game day with heavy input from McKittrick. If the coordinator wanted a run play later in the game, they’d ask McKittrick what he would suggest.

Sullivan has been an offensive coordinator (2003 with Arizona) and he shares Rathman’s passion for coaching the small details. When Sullivan coordinated the Cardinals’ offense, Arizona finished last in points, but the team had no talent and Arizona was led by aging stars Jeff Blake and Emmitt Smith (who averaged 2.8 yards per carry). With better talent and a firmer overall grasp of his personnel, Sullivan could do the job. He and Rathman could also get assistance from offensive line coach Chris Foerster, who’s also been an offensive coordinator.

With co-coordinators the offensive plan would be much more consensual, which Singletary prefers. He met with all the defensive coaches last year and contributed to the game planning every week. When he wanted to know what was going on on offense, he only talked to Mike Martz.